Novikov homology was introduced by Novikov in the
early 1980s motivated by problems in hydrodynamics. The Novikov
inequalities in the Novikov homology theory
give lower bounds for the number of critical points of a Morse closed 1-form on a compact
differentiable manifold M. In the first part of my talk I shall
survey the Novikov homology theory in finite dimensional setting
and its further developments in infinite dimensional setting with applications in the theory of symplectic fixed points and Lagrangian intersection/embedding problems. In the second part of my
talk
I shall report on my recent joint work with Jean-Francois Barraud and Agnes Gadbled on construction of the Novikov fundamental group
associated to a cohomology
class of a closed 1-form on M and its application to obtaining
new lower bounds for the number of
critical points of a Morse 1-form.

Novikov homology was introduced by Novikov in the
early 1980s motivated by problems in hydrodynamics. The Novikov
inequalities in the Novikov homology theory
give lower bounds for the number of critical points of a Morse closed 1-form on a compact
differentiable manifold M. In the first part of my talk I shall
survey the Novikov homology theory in finite dimensional setting
and its further developments in infinite dimensional setting with applications in the theory of symplectic fixed points and Lagrangian intersection/embedding problems. In the second part of my
talk
I shall report on my recent joint work with Jean-Francois Barraud and Agnes Gadbled on construction of the Novikov fundamental group
associated to a cohomology
class of a closed 1-form on M and its application to obtaining
new lower bounds for the number of
critical points of a Morse 1-form.